Just how balanced is the Balanced Mod?

For that matter, I think all NO’s for taking CAPITALS are stupid, including the ones for NSW and India.  (Throw in WUS too because it has a major complex)  Isn’t it already enough that you raided their money and they can’t build?

Why not give Germany a +5 NO for having Paris?  Same logic

If you want a +5 for London, just house rule it - you house rule a lot of things already - why bother the balanced mod people

@Gamerman01:

why bother the balanced mod people

Why would they feel bothered, they have already said that the London NO was probably the only thing they were open to adding in some capacity… I’m just campaigning for it.

@Young:

However, not giving Germany a NO for control of London just won’t work for us, I know that this one may be on the block for consideration… and I think you should find a way to make it work.

Yup. I agree completely. And we have decided to include a London NO in the next release of Balance Mod (which we expect will be forthcoming in the next two weeks). The NO we have settled upon, based on user feedback in the “G40 Balance Mod - Feedback Thread” is this:

“5 PUs if Germany has a land unit in either Egypt or the United Kingdom (London).”

The upshot of this NO is that Germany now has two ways to achieve the 5 PUs from the OOB “Presence in Egypt” NO. But if Germany captures both UK and Egypt, it still only gets +5 PUs. This NO was the brainchild of Adam514, the Master League player who co-created the Mod. We play tested it. Its awesome. And was well received in the feedback thread.

We did initially toy with the idea of giving Germany a separate NO for London alone (so conquest of both London and UK would mean +10), but there was some well-reasoned opposition to it from League players. And after play testing several sealion games, we agreed that the separate NO would make Sealion overpowered, unduly limiting UK’s strategic options.

sorry Gamer. its gonna be part of Balance Mod. the people have spoken! :)

@Gamerman01:

Give back the 1 UK infantry in Egypt that they took away toward the end, that was there before!

Yah, two things the Mod Squad kinda agreed at the outset was not to fuss with starting unit setup and initial territorial alignment (hence, no change to Sierra Leone). We want the mod to operate “under the hood” so to speak. If more allied units are deemed necessary by players despite all the other changes (I very much doubt this), that can always be addressed by way of a bid.

@regularkid:

@Young:

However, not giving Germany a NO for control of London just won’t work for us, I know that this one may be on the block for consideration… and I think you should find a way to make it work.

"5 PUs if Germany has a land unit in either Egypt or the United Kingdom (London)

I’m on board with that… It’s a direction play, in my gaming experience Germany sometimes won’t give Italy the support it needs to take Egypt for other endeavours, and Italy may simply turtle in Rome to give Germany support on the Eastern front. Therefore, I can see more desire for an African campaign coming from the Axis, as it should be. However, this makes a joint operation for Egypt a standard move IMO given the relative ease if US stays neutral, and the initial importance of Ciaro along with the new 5 IPC evaluation for Germany (and it puts sealion back on the table). My only question is… would this replace the German land unit present in Egypt NO, I assume it would. BTW, I’m not a fan of changing the initial setup, so I would support any decision to revert back from any changes made to Egyipt.

Grasshopper, yes it replaces the Egypt NO. Obviously Germany can still get its 5 Pus from putting a land unit in Egypt. But, in a successful Sealion, it will get the same 5 PUs from occupying London (at which point the occupation of Egypt just becomes a matter of getting the necessary VCs).

YG, no changes were made to the unit set up in Balance Mod. When Gamer says he wants to revert back to the original Egypt setup, I think he’s referring to the prior edition of the game.

@regularkid:

sorry Gamer. its gonna be part of Balance Mod. the people have spoken! :)

Oh you don’t have to say sorry - to me this NO makes about as much difference as the +10 for taking Berlin to Russia.  If I actually lose London, I’m getting it back before long at all and the Russians are going to go crazy.

My argument is it has a negligible effect, so I don’t care either way

But it is punitive to give NO’s for capitals - and that includes Moscow.  They can’t collect income, they can’t build, the major gets knocked down to a minor - jeez, and why don’t we throw in bonus money every turn for the victor as well.  Moscow, Berlin, WUS, India, ANZ - none of them need NO’s

@Gamerman01:

@regularkid:

sorry Gamer. its gonna be part of Balance Mod. the people have spoken! :)

Oh you don’t have to say sorry - to me this NO makes about as much difference as the +10 for taking Berlin to Russia.  If I actually lose London, I’m getting it back before long at all and the Russians are going to go crazy.

My argument is it has a negligible effect, so I don’t care either way

But it is punitive to give NO’s for capitals - and that includes Moscow.  They can’t collect income, they can’t build, the major gets knocked down to a minor - jeez, and why don’t we throw in bonus money every turn for the victor as well.  Moscow, Berlin, WUS, India, ANZ - none of them need NO’s

I think your views on this support my belief that a 5 IPC bonus for London does not make Sealion a forgone conclusion.

@Gamerman01:

@regularkid:

sorry Gamer. its gonna be part of Balance Mod. the people have spoken! :)

Oh you don’t have to say sorry - to me this NO makes about as much difference as the +10 for taking Berlin to Russia.  If I actually lose London, I’m getting it back before long at all and the Russians are going to go crazy.

My argument is it has a negligible effect, so I don’t care either way

Hahaha. perhaps this will induce you to be bit a more conservative with your UK1 purchase/move? Maybe less inclined to the pull the trigger on scramble in sz 110/111? mmm? if so, i will call this the “tame gamerman and axis dominion NO”

If we worry about historical accuracy surrounding the state of Sierra Leone during world war II, then surely we must also not forget how the Red Army got their $10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9prP_FhVx0

@RK - No, not at ALL

Variance, there’s only one player that worries about Sierra Leone  :lol:

@cyanight:

@Young:

I like the lend lease ideas, but the execution is clumsy in my opinion. Trying to figure out how to apply my card design to this concept is difficult, I would basically have to create 6 cards for one mechanic (2 IPCs each 3 NOs, and 4 IPCs each for the same 3 NOs. I would make them 3 IPCs each no matter what the political situation is between Japan (seems like a lot of words for one declaration of war). This way a Japanese ship in SZ 5 won’t mean a lick when it comes to taking away the 3 IPCs, Japan will be forced to declare war on Russia just to make their ship in SZ 5 an enemy ship. I have not played it yet, this is my inexperienced opinion… but I like clean worded rules, and this Lend Lease bump from 2 to 4 IPCs is far from it.

You and I think alike my friend. I just revamped my NO cards to use with balanced mod and ended up just putting a note on the bottom to double the cost. I also thought of the +3 instead of +2/+4 as well… Anyways, I have not updated them on Artscow yet but I have the card images made. Now I have to paint some Vichy France inf, artillery, cruiser and destroyer. Also have to paint Russian and Anzac Marines. I doubt the Russians will ever be used But I can see Anzac using them.

Hey Cyanight,

We should work together on how to make balance mod compatible for table tops.

Balance mod sounds like another name for my grandmother’s bra… any desire to give it some legitimacy with a more universal name?

hahaha@Young:

Balance mod sounds like another name for my grandmother’s bra… any desire to give it some legitimacy with a more universal name?

hahaha. that made me chuckle. We might be a bit past the point of no return–at least, as far League games are concerned (everyone is already using Bal Mod or BM in their topic headings to designate games using the mod). But when we release Balance Mod 2.0 (next week sometime), we could certainly include a subtitle if someone proposes something good. E.g., “Balance Mod 2.0: The Allies Strike Back” thats terrible, but u get the idea. It would have to be descriptive of the mod, short, and catchy.

G40b

@variance:

G40b

Yep…

G40B (Global 1940 Balanced)

I would get behind that.

In general I tend to agree with gamerman’s position that NOs for taking a capital are reduntant. My position on NOs is that they are best when used as a way to persuade players to do something that they wouldn’t otherwise do, without an additional incentive of cash money.
Viewed that way, I can see why one for London might be attractive, though I’m not sure that 5 ipcs would be enough of an incentive there. Have you considered going a little higher?

I definitely agree that the Berlin NO for the Russians is pretty pointless. It topped the list of NOs I wish would have been scrapped and replaced with better ones, when compiling ideas a while back in this thread…
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=34568.0

I tried to highlight the NOs I thought were particularly problematic on page 3 of that thread…
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=34568.msg1335304#msg1335304

I was happy to see though that some of the ideas outlined there, esp. for the Russians did make it into this mod in one form or another. Which is cool.

We definitely had bigger fish to fry than Sierra Leone lol.

I like the proposed name change, G40b has a better ring to it.

Fine then. “g40 balanced” it is

Below is my post to the “G40 Balance Mod - feedback” today thread regarding our upcoming release of version 2. Thought I’d submit it here for comment and keep everyone apprised.

Gentlemen,

After much deliberation, soul searching, and reflection, the Mod Squad has decided to release Balance Mod 2.0. This will be an updated version of the mod based on feedback we received, here and elsewhere on the forum. I’m putting the finishing touches on the XML now, and the release will likely happen early next week.

The changes might be described as modest  Some have already been discussed on this thread. They’ve undergone play testing. We would like to submit them for comment one last time before the release is finalized.

Here are the changes:

1. Correction: XML corrected to award 5 PUs for USA’s Vital Forward Bases objective (was incorrectly coded to award 4).

2. Vichy France Revision: Vichy French conversion of territory can only be prevented by non-French allied land units. Any non-French allied air units on French territories that convert to Vichy French are immediately destroyed.

3. Revised German National Objective: 5 PUs if there is at least one German land unit in either London (the United Kingdom) or Egypt. (This modifies Germany’s “Presence in Egypt” objective).

4. New German National Objective - Control of Balkans: 2 PUs if Romania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Albania, Greece, and Crete are Axis or Pro-Axis controlled.

5. Revised UK Pacific Objective: 3 PUs for UK Pacific when at war with the Japanese if Malaya and Kwantung are Allied controlled. (This modifies UK Pacific’s “Malaya and Kwantung” objective.

6. Revised ANZAC Objective: 3 PUs if ANZAC is at war with the Japanese, controls all of its original territories, and Malaya is Allied controlled. (This modifies ANZAC’s “Control Original And Malaya” objective).

Note: With these changes, all UK and Anzac National Objectives are now worth 3 PUs.

Would appreciate feedback, particularly from folks who have played/are playing the mod.

thanks all